Wendy Zuckerman
speaker
3,659 appearances
16 recordings
3 series
first heard May 2020
last heard 2 Jul
Wendy Zuckerman’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 10 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 3.
Appearances
And these laws, they made a big difference.
Car exhaust is safer than it used to be, and many power plants now have doobie whackers on them, like scrubbers, to keep some of the pollution out of the air.
So yeah, for London, no more pea soupers.
But over the years, scientists have come to realise that the invisible stuff that is still getting pumped into our air, it can do some dangerous things to our health.
One researcher told me it scares the shit out of her.
This pollution can break down into teeny tiny pieces about the same size as bacteria.
They float in the air and when you breathe them in,
They're so small that they can just sneak inside us.
Here's Stephen again.
Really?
All parts of the body?
And Stephen says air pollution is now being linked to all sorts of diseases.
Blindness?
Yeah, it's thought that tiny bits of pollution can mess with our retina, increasing our risk of eye disease.
And some of these bits of pollution are so small that they can actually cross the placenta, potentially affecting fetuses.
They can even get into our brains.
We're still working out exactly what all of this means, but some of the other effects of pollution are more clear.
Like, besides fouling up our lungs, we've known for years that crap in the air increases our risk of getting heart disease.
For example, a study of around half a million older folks found that those living near a highway or busy street were 30% more likely to die from coronary heart disease than those living further away.
And that's why, for years, places like the World Health Organization and the EPA had been lowering what a safe level of pollution is.
Showing 1461–1480 of 3,659 · page 74 of 183
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